SEOUL—South Korea's state auditor said a senior foreign-ministry official deliberately overstated the size of a Cameroon diamond mine as part of a stock-manipulation scam that has become a major election-year embarrassment for President Lee Myung-bak's government.

He also can rest assured that President Obama's election-year proposal to control tuition growth represents coalition building at its finest and has little to do with actual funding plans or economics.

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama called on Congress Monday to enact new taxes on the wealthy, restructure the tax code and approve short-term spending measures as part of an election-year budget plan aimed at boosting job growth and helping the middle class.